Most Famous Confucianism Philosophers

Confucianism is a Chinese philosophical, ethical, and political tradition rooted in the teachings of Confucius and his followers in the fifth century BC. It emphasizes the cultivation of moral character through ritual propriety, filial piety, humaneness, and right relationships within family and society. Its canonical texts include the Analects, the Mencius, and the Five Classics. Confucianism became state orthodoxy in imperial China and shaped governance, education, and family life across East Asia. It remains a central frame of reference in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought.

Philosophers in this tradition

Confucius 551 BC – 479 BC · Chinese
Confucius was a Chinese philosopher and political teacher of the Spring and Autumn period. His teachings, recorded by disciples in the Analects, emphasize personal and governmen...
Mencius 372 BC – 289 BC · Chinese
Mengzi, conventionally known in the West as Mencius, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BC, traditionally regarded as the second sage of the Confucian tra...
Yamamoto Tsunetomo 1659 – 1719 · Japanese
Yamamoto Tsunetomo was a Japanese samurai and philosopher of the early Edo period, a retainer of the Saga domain who, on the death of his lord in 1700, was forbidden by Tokugawa...
Xunzi 310 BC – 235 BC · Chinese
Xunzi was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the late Warring States period and one of the three great classical Confucian thinkers, alongside Confucius and Mencius. Against Men...
Cheng Yi 1033 – 1107 · Chinese
Cheng Yi, with his elder brother Cheng Hao, was one of the founders of the Neo-Confucian School of Principle that would culminate in the synthesis of Zhu Xi. He served briefly a...
Dai Zhen 1724 – 1777 · Chinese
Dai Zhen was a Chinese Confucian philosopher and philologist of the High Qing period, the most influential figure of the school of evidential research, or kaozheng, that dominat...
Roger T. Ames b. 1947 · Canadian
Roger T. Ames is a Canadian philosopher, Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University and emeritus professor at the University of Hawaii, and one of the most influential Engl...
Shao Yong 1011 – 1077 · Chinese
Shao Yong was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty and one of the founding figures of the new Confucian metaphysics that would shape East Asian thoug...
Wang Chong 27 – c. 100 · Chinese
Wang Chong was a Chinese philosopher of the Eastern Han dynasty and one of the most original critical and naturalist thinkers of the classical Chinese tradition. His Lunheng, th...
Cheng Hao 1032 – 1085 · Chinese
Cheng Hao, known as Cheng Mingdao, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty, the elder brother of Cheng Yi and one of the founding figures of the Che...
Hu Shi 1891 – 1962 · Chinese
Hu Shi was a Chinese philosopher, essayist, and diplomat, and a leader of the May Fourth and New Culture movements. After completing his doctorate under John Dewey at Columbia, ...
Yan Yuan 1635 – 1704 · Chinese
Yan Yuan, known as Yan Xizhai, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the early Qing dynasty and a sharp critic of the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian establishment of his time. He held...
A. C. Graham 1919 – 1991 · British
Angus Charles Graham was a British sinologist and philosopher, professor of classical Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and the most influential E...
Zhu Xi 1130 – 1200 · Chinese
Zhu Xi was a Chinese philosopher and the most influential exponent of Neo-Confucianism. Drawing on the work of the eleventh-century masters, he synthesized a comprehensive metap...
Li Zehou 1930 – 2021 · Chinese
Li Zehou was a Chinese philosopher and aesthetician, the most influential figure of the post-Mao Chinese philosophical scene, who reconstructed the Confucian and Marxist traditi...
Wang Yangming 1472 – 1529 · Chinese
Wang Yangming was a 15th and early 16th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher, statesman, and military general of the Ming dynasty, the most influential Confucian thinker of...
Zhang Zai 1020 – 1077 · Chinese
Zhang Zai was a Chinese Northern Song Confucian philosopher and one of the founding figures of the Neo-Confucian renaissance. With Zhou Dunyi and the Cheng brothers, he reshaped...
Lu Jiuyuan 1139 – 1193 · Chinese
Lu Jiuyuan, also known as Lu Xiangshan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Southern Song dynasty and the principal rival of Zhu Xi, whose more rationalist program he...
Dong Zhongshu 179 BC – 104 BC · Chinese
Dong Zhongshu was a Chinese Han-dynasty Confucian philosopher and statesman, the principal architect of the imperial Confucianism that, under his recommendation to the emperor W...
Feng Youlan 1895 – 1990 · Chinese
Feng Youlan was a Chinese philosopher and one of the most influential figures in the modern reception of Chinese philosophy. He earned his doctorate at Columbia under John Dewey...
Inoue Tetsujiro 1855 – 1944 · Japanese
Inoue Tetsujiro was a Japanese philosopher of the Meiji and Taisho eras and one of the founders of academic philosophy in modern Japan. After early studies under foreign teacher...
Kang Youwei 1858 – 1927 · Chinese
Kang Youwei was a late-Qing Chinese scholar, reformer, and political philosopher who reimagined Confucianism as a modern civil religion and engine of political transformation. H...
Liang Qichao 1873 – 1929 · Chinese
Liang Qichao was a Chinese reformer, journalist, and philosopher and one of the leading intellectuals of the late Qing and early Republican period. A student of Kang Youwei and ...
Liang Shuming 1893 – 1988 · Chinese
Liang Shuming was a Chinese philosopher, rural reformer, and one of the founders of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After early studies in Buddhism, he turn...
Liu Zongzhou 1578 – 1645 · Chinese
Liu Zongzhou, known as Liu Jishan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher and political figure of the late Ming dynasty, the leader of the Donglin movement of moral-political r...
Mou Zongsan 1909 – 1995 · Chinese
Mou Zongsan was a Chinese philosopher and one of the principal representatives of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After studies at Peking University and a l...
Tan Sitong 1865 – 1898 · Chinese
Tan Sitong was a late-Qing Chinese reformer and philosopher, one of the Six Gentlemen executed after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. In his major work A Study o...
Tang Junyi 1909 – 1978 · Chinese
Tang Junyi was a Chinese philosopher and one of the most important figures of the second generation of New Confucianism. After fleeing mainland China in 1949 he co-founded New A...
Tu Weiming b. 1940 · Chinese-American
Tu Weiming is a Chinese-American philosopher, professor at Peking University and emeritus professor at Harvard, and the most influential exponent of New Confucianism in the late...
Wang Tingxiang 1474 – 1544 · Chinese
Wang Tingxiang, known as Wang Junchuan, was a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the mid-Ming dynasty, a senior official of the imperial court, and the most original Confucian...
Xiong Shili 1885 – 1968 · Chinese
Xiong Shili was a Chinese philosopher and one of the founders of the New Confucian movement of the twentieth century. After early training in classical studies and Yogacara Budd...
Yi Hwang (Toegye) 1501 – 1570 · Korean
Yi Hwang, known by his pen name Toegye, was a Korean Joseon dynasty Confucian scholar and the most influential Korean philosopher in the Neo-Confucian tradition of Zhu Xi. He se...
Yi I (Yulgok) 1536 – 1584 · Korean
Yi I, known by the pen name Yulgok, was a Korean Joseon-dynasty Confucian philosopher, statesman, and reformer, often counted with Yi Hwang as one of the two great Korean Neo-Co...
Zhou Dunyi 1017 – 1073 · Chinese
Zhou Dunyi was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the Northern Song dynasty and one of the founding figures of the Neo-Confucian tradition that would culminate in Zhu Xi. His Di...